Play Dark Castle in Windows December 13th, 2007

I’ve found an old image of Beyond Dark Castle that is compatible with the version of Mini vMac we are using below! I added it to the existing archive, DarkCastle.zip. Now you can simply drop the ROM file, BDCImage.hfv into the running emulator and be off to the races with the equally legendary sequel. Enjoy.

Dark Castle was one of my favorite games to play on the old mid-1980s Macintoshes like the Mac Plus. I spent some time last year looking for a version I could run in Windows, but with no success. A few weeks ago I discovered a tutorial for running Dark Castle via a Mac emulator. I felt it was a bit confusing and left something to be desired, so I decided to put together a one-stop shop for playing Dark Castle in Windows.

Run the Mini vMac.exe executable. Mini vMac is is a Mac Plus emulator which is freely distributed. Mini vMac requires a ROM image from a Macintosh Plus to run, which I’ve provided as well.

Once you’ve executed Mini vMac.exe, you are effectively running a Mac Plus with no operating system installed. I consolidated some of the steps in the above mentioned tutorial and created a disk image with System 6 already installed. Go to File > Open Disk Image within Mini vMac and open the file Disk603.dsk or drag the file into the vMac window.

Now that System 6 is up and running, it would be useful to have a hard drive available to install software and save data to. Just like the previous step drag the included file, hfs10M.DSK into the vMac window to mount the 10M hard disk image I pre-loaded with the Dark Castle software.

That’s pretty much it. Run the Dark Castle executable to start the game.

Enjoy the game! If you’re anything like me, it should be a nice trip down memory lane. Let me know if you have any questions about the game play.

Next on the list of Mac games I would like to resurrect is Lode Runner…

61 comments on “Play Dark Castle in Windows”

I can not begin to tell you how long I’ve searched for an emulator version of Dark Castle to play. I’ve been seconds away from winning 2 different eBay auctions for an old Mac Plus so that I could play it. This takes me right back to my childhood.

You Sir are magnificent! Thank you so much for this, I´ve been looking for years and I curse the stupid internet for not sending me here sooner: everything you need, simple as hell. I am in a mac and it worked perfectly still (even the rom file I was stuck with). Again, thanks for this childhood glimpse! All the best. Cheers